A Meal Fit For a Prince
by TheHttydRaven
Summary: A short little angst fic that is kinda dark. Prince Anduin has been kidnapped. He has been held without food for almost half a month. When the hunger gets too bad for him to stand... Anduin turns to less than favorable methods to calm the aching pains of his empty stomach. Aka Cannibalism. Technically Endocannibalism but details.


Is this the darkest thing I've written? Yes. Definitely.

It's a little rushed but eh. I just want to hit my word goal before summer is over so I've gotta write a few more things in the next month.

I love Varian so most of my fics are pre-Legion. No sad, only alive dad for me.

《◇》

Anduin paced the cell he was locked in, carefully avoiding the limp body that was resting against the far wall of the cell, the stench of death flooding his nose and filling his mind with anxieties that he would soon follow the poor man into the land of the dead.

Anduin had been in this cell for almost two weeks - twelve and a half days by his reckoning - and he had not been given a single crumb of food since he had been thrown into the small room after he and his guards had been ambushed in the dead of night on their way back to Stormwind, although he was able to drink from a small trickle of water that slowly dripped down the bricks that made up the back wall of his cell.

The prince cursed his luck. The one time the guards had decided to take a slightly different path due to a blockage caused by fallen trees was the one time they get ambushed. Anduin knew that his soldiers had been killed, seeing the violent actions with his own eyes, and as the choice to take a slightly different path was chosen after setting off towards Stormwind, anybody searching for him wouldn't be in the right place.

Anduin had nary a clue as to who had kidnapped him, nor why - although he assumed it was to use him as a political hostage.

He had been knocked out, before waking up as he was dragged into what seemed to be a cavern, his captors tossing him into the small cell which had already held the man - a rogue named Jack - who was now freshly deceased, his body pushed into the corner of the cell.

Jack had been feverish and barely coherent when Anduin had joined him, but the prince was able to determine that the rouge had been in the cell for little over a month. Anduin had tried to use the light to keep him alive, but Jack had slipped into the grip of death, falling asleep alongside Anduin two nights ago and not waking when the prince tried to shake him awake the next morning. Anduin could do nothing except place his cool body in the corner of the cell and try his best to avoid it.

The young boy rose his shaking hands to grasp his hair, sliding against the wall before hitting the ground, bringing his weak and shaking knees up to bang against his chest as he curled into a small ball in an attempt to lessen the gnawing ache that filled his empty stomach.

Anduin grimaced as his stomach turned, wrapping his arms around himself as he squeezed his eyes shut, beginning to hum a song in an attempt to distract himself from the stabbing pains in his stomach as his body begged for food.

The prince stilled his shivering, opening his eyes as he stared at his hand, rotating the appendage before slowly raising it, hesitantly opening his jaw as he placed his thumb in his mouth, his teeth catching against the dry skin.

Anduin inhaled deeply, but didn't remove the thumb from his mouth.

_He needed to eat something._

Anduin shut his eyes, before biting down.

Searing pain flood his mind, causing Anduin to yelp, pulling the appendage from his mouth as droplets of blood went flying from the marks left by his teeth.

Anduin glared at the throbbing wound, annoyed that he was unable to sufficiently get a bite, his brain forcing his jaw to release the thumb before he could bite all the way through the skin, only allowing him to draw a small amount of blood before the pain was too much to bare.

_But... there was something - someone - else._

Anduin turned and stared at the fresh corpse that lay across the cell from him.

A corpse covered in flesh.

_Edible flesh._

Anduin uncurled from his position against the wall, slowly moving across the cell on his hands and knees, his weak limbs pulling himself across the cold stone floor as he focused on Jack.

Anduin hesitated as he crouched over the body, dull blue eyes darting across the cold body, before he stretched out a shaking hand and closed the man's eyes, a drop of blood from his throbbing thumb falling onto the man's cheek as he drew the hand away.

"I... I need to eat." Anduin's face settled into a grim frown as he steeled himself for what he was about to do. "I will not die here."

The prince hesitantly reached out for the limp arm that lay beside Jack's body, lifting it as he crouched over the cold body. Anduin chose to bite the skin on the man's lower arm, above the wrist.

Giving himself no chance to back out of the action, Anduin quickly opened his mouth and shoved the arm into it, slamming his jaws shut as his teeth bit into the cold skin. Holding back a gag, Anduin brought his teeth together, the flesh splitting before his teeth as blood flooded from the wound. The prince pulling his head back and pulling the chunk of flesh from the body, settling back onto his feet as he let the arm fall, focusing on the chunk of meat now held in his mouth, hoping that it would ease the horrible pains that clawed at his empty stomach.

Forcing back the bile that threatened to rise up his throat, Anduin hesitantly swallowed the section of human meat, his stomach easing its aching pains for a moment as his body processed the food.

Relishing the relief from the hunger pains, Anduin turned back to the body. Desperation filled him but he grabbed the arm again, opening his mouth for another bite.

_The texture was all wrong, but the taste reminded Anduin of pork that he and his father had eaten on occasion back in Stormwind..._

《◇》

Varian stormed through the large cavern that was the center of operations for the cult that had taken his son, swiftly walking past his many soldiers that were securing the cultists that hadn't been slain in the fight that had taken place as Varian and his soldiers fought their way into the sprawling tunnels and caves that the cult used to hold their going-ons.

Their reasoning for taking Anduin? Their obviously insane leader had been blessed with a "vision", a prophecy given to them from their god that Stormwind would have to fall after the demise of Varian, and they interpreted that as a call from their god to "dispose" of Anduin, thus killing off Varian's only heir.

As their religion strictly prohibited the direct killing of children, which they determined Anduin was, they decided to indirectly kill him by leaving him in a cell without food or water, thusly letting him starve to death.

A slow and painful demise.

Varian had promptly gotten the location of his son's cell from one of the cultists, with a little help from Shalamayne.

As he swiftly walked through the dark and cold hallway cut out of the rock that surrounded them, Varian felt a twinge of doubt and fear.

_What if they hadn't been fast enough? What if Anduin was..._

Varian shook his head to disrupt his thoughts, picking up his pace as he turned the corner, spotting a metal door placed into the cave wall at the other side of the hallway.

Varian rose his foot, knocking the door through with one strong kick from his armored leg.

As Varian stepped through the door into the small cell, he laid his eyes on his son for the first time in three weeks.

_And he was horrified at what he saw._

Anduin was dressed in a dirtied tunic and leggings - his armor presumably having been taken by his captors - and was crouched over a body that was propped against the far corner of the cell, the man's bloodied and torn apart arm currently being bitten into by the prince.

As the door slammed against the wall of the cell, Anduin froze, before dropping the arm he had been holding in his mouth, turning his face - which Varian subconsciously noted was smeared with blood - to face his father.

Varian took in his son's half-crazed eyes, blood spattered hands and bloodied teeth, before dropping his sword and stepping towards Anduin, taking care to move slowly.

The clatter of the weapon upon the stone floor seemed to shock Anduin out of his daze, the prince flinching and scrambling back, pushing himself against the wall of the cell as his dulled eyes filled with fear.

"Anduin...?" Varian crouched down, leaving a few feet between himself and his skittish son, whose breath hitched as the king called out his name.

"Father..?" Anduin trailed off, his eyes looking towards Varian but the king had a hunch that he wasn't really seeing him as Anduin's eyes were glazed over and unfocused.

"Anduin, I'm here." Varian attempted to offer  
a reassuring smile but it fell short as he took in the horror that had befallen his only child. "I came to rescue you."

"Father I-" Andui focused on Varian as his chest heaved, a sob emitting from his throat. "I didn't want to. I just didn't want to die. Father, I didn't want to die. I had to, I had to." Anduin rose his hands to grasp at his hair, bloodied fingers leaving streaks of red in his golden locks.

Varian slowly reached out, grabbing his son by the shoulder and drawing him close, arms enveloping Anduin as the young prince clutched his father, burrowing his tear streaked face in his father's chest.

After the medics had arrived and spelled Anduin into a dreamless sleep and the prince had been portaled away, Varian was left on his own in the cell, with no one for company beside the dead man lying on the cell floor with bite marks and missing chunks of skin covering him. Varian looked down at the wet tear stains and blood smears left on his front by Anduin, before turning and storming from the cell, heading for the cultists with only one objective in mind.

_To make them pay for what they did to his son._

If the soldiers that were supposed to be guarding the cultists arrived back in Stormwind earlier then they were supposed to, nobody mentioned it.

If the cultists never arrived to be taken to jail, nobody mentioned it.

When the king arrived a long time after the rest of the guards and his son, his sword stained red and his eyes clouded with rage, nobody mentioned it.

_'Serves them right,'_ was the mindset of Stormwind citizens as their eyes discreetly followed King Varian as he marched through the streets on his path toward the Keep - and his son.

_You can't expect to hurt the beloved Prince of the Alliance without consequences._

《◇》

Wooo Mad Dad ftw.


End file.
